Western Short StoryLizard Mountain Water HoleTom Sheehan

Western Short Story

The sign was stuck
in the ground on a stick, and read, in a rough hand not used to
lettering, “Water 5 cents a canteen, or else.” What happened to
look like a bullet was hair-pin drawn across the bottom of the sign.
The first sight of anything civilized he had seen in weeks of
trailing a murderous fugitive caught Pretend Hardy by surprise.

Still astride Paws,
his sturdy trail horse, Hardy looked all around, saw nobody standing
guard, nothing moving near the hole or in the steep incline leading
to Lizard Mountain, laughed and yelled loudly, his voice booming off
the rocks and rock faces, “What gets me the or else?”

If there was any
pause in the reply, Pretend Hardy couldn’t count any seconds, as a
rifle shot winged noisily over his head. He ducked as a voice
answered from an unknown location on the cliff face, a woman’s
voice, saying, “Is that answer enough, mister whoever you be?”

Pretend Hardy stood
his ground and said, “The Good Lord let the water rest here for
thirsty riders. You aiming to take his place, Ma’am?”

“I’m just
renting the place from him, so I got to pay my rent. You doubting the
Good Lord deserves his rent money? You’re my first customer in two
days. Business ain’t so good.”

“What’d that
last customer look like, Ma’am, he scrawny and dirty all over and
riding a horse that don’t look like it belongs to him, a roan all
pretty by hisself?”

“You a lawman,
mister? You paint a picture of that man couldn’t be any better’n
what you said.”

Hardy still hadn’t
seen the speaker, but saw a hat move slightly on one line of the
cliff. “I am, Ma’am, Sheriff Pretend Hardy from Culvern City, and
that scrawny, dirty looking dude is wanted for murdering a whole
family of folk just to get their horse. His name is Moss Qwick and I
am going to see him hanged sooner or later. Right now, me and my
horse are thirsty. I’ll pay your price and will rest here tonight
if you don’t mind.”

“That’s a funny
name, Mr. Hardy, how’d you come by it? Water’s free for lawmen,
and you’re welcome to stay.”

Hardy still
couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, except above him,
and believed he heard a bit of relief in its tone.

“Names come by
accident or out of history, and us getting named don’t have much
control over either one. I think my good mother wanted me to be a
stage actor or the like. One thing I can say aside of thank you,
Ma’am, is that Qwick feller could have, in the two days since you
last saw him, worked his way around and is now sitting above you
checking on the spoils he has in mind.”

“Show him, Dawg.”

A wolfish looking
animal, probably a German Shepherd, thought Hardy, leaped from behind
a rock and was beside him growling. The animal looked to be a solid
90 or 100 pounds of fighting measure.

Hardy held Paws in
place, muttered “Whoa , boy,” to both horse and dog, and pointed
up at the cliff. “He any good at climbing rock, Ma’am, that dog
of yours? That’s where I think that Qwick feller will keep hisself,
up there, until he thinks he’s the new renter here. I do believe he
took the man’s weapons when he took his horse, that includes a
Winchester. Now, I’d worry about that if I was you, looking up from
the bottom of the barrel, as they might say back home.”

“You sit, Dawg,”
the woman said, and stood up so Hardy could see her. She appeared
young and moved briskly and started a fairly easy descent from her
hidden position. In five minutes more or less she was standing across
the water hole from Hardy. Her rifle was almost level, but not quite
and Hardy read that appeasement in the lady. He thought she had
tolerance and trust, to a point, and that spoke well of her. And he
immediately liked her face and dreamy hazel green eyes even the
desert couldn’t dim because they were so alive, and she appeared
younger than him by a dozen years or so.

Her voice lost its
earlier edge as she talked on, Hardy knowing he was on the listening
side. “Decent company is a big hope here, mister. I buried my
father in among the rocks about a week ago. I think he had a heart
attack and went real quick. He had a claim here took up all his
dreams, and was breaking them at the same time, the way it looks.
Never found a nickel’s worth.” She shrugged her shoulders and
Hardy believed she would have stayed with her father as long as the
dream held out.

“I was not
hankering to leave here in a hurry, knowing I might not get back any
time soon, the way things happen to a body. I’ve got food for
another week, but need a grubstake when I get to town, so I put up
the sign. I got two dollars in loans and tips since I set it, most
from last week when three cowboys came through, smiling and looking
happy when they saw me, but no trouble. I ain’t working in any
saloon when I get wherever I’m getting to.” She paused as she
looked Hardy over, eyeing his guns, his horse, the three canteens
looped on his pommel. “My name’s Shelby Spark, Mr. Hardy. Pleased
to meet you.”

She walked around
the waterhole and shook his hand.

Hardy had only
heard the term “manna” but knew immediately its definition as he
touched her hand. A small electric shock accompanied the touch. It
must have hit her too, as her eyes lit up. ”Oh boy,” she said,
“that’s something new.” Her face turned a slight pink, then
went all the way red. Then, as a woman with control ultimately in her
hand, she said, “You really think that’s what this Qwick will do,
sneak up from behind?”

“Where’s the
next water hole, Ma’am? It far?”

“None I know of
‘tween here and Ottsville, and that’s a couple good days of
riding.”

“Well, Qwick
ain’t heading that way. He owes people there as much as he owes me
and the family he blew right off their porch.”

“When you move
on, in the morning, Mr. Hardy, can I ride along with you?”

“It’d be a
pleasure with me, Ma’am, if we can lasso that Qwick feller so he
ain’t at our backs along the trail.”

“How do you
propose doing that, if he’s two days ahead of you?”

“He was two days
afore this, but I don’t figure he’s two days out there right this
minute. I haven’t read him wrong yet, ‘cept I been making sure of
all tracks, and I think he set eyes on you, if you know what I mean,
regardless of the hellos.”

“So what happens
now? You ‘re not rushing off and leaving me, to chase around the
mountain for him, are you?” For the first time there was honest
concern in her voice.

“”Won’t do
that, Ma’am, not for a second, though I got some ideas squirming
round in my head how we can corral that feller, you being up to a bit
of play acting.”

Neither the concern
nor the worry nor the desert itself had dimmed any of Shelby Spark’s
beauty, and all kinds of ideas and choices and hopes rushed through
Hardy’s mind. He never had been too smart a feller at his own
thinking, he admitted to himself, but what hit him was like a loaded
gun.

”Say we play act
it like this, me knowing a bit about Qwick and how he takes things to
mind. Say we, in play acting, play acting mind you, get ourselves
kind of cozy lovey so’s he can see us, that’ll shake the hell out
of him and instead of taking a chance of getting me from up there and
you winging him back, he’ll sneak down and try to get me real close
like, and then lock down on you. But we’ll be waiting. We got to
set the bait for him, just before dark and a decent fire in the pit.
You game?”

“I did say that
good company was a big hope for me. It’d be my pleasure, Mr. Hardy.
He really kill the whole family? How old were any kids?”

“Too young for
what he did, two of them, one each younger than me when I was
learning to ride.”

Hardy saw a well of
tears threatening to come loose, and to his great surprise his heart
took another leap on top of the last one. For the first time, the
very first time on the trail of a mad killer, he felt threatened, as
if he was no longer in control.

*

The fire was just
starting to lose some of its radiant flames and Hardy said, “We
best make the most of the little light we have left, Ma’am.”

“If you’re
about to kiss me, Mr. Hardy, better be quick about it, and gentle and
slow like he’ll believe us. And please call me Shelby, or Honey, or
whatever you want, but we better not waste time atalking.”

She was in his
arms, kissing him, and he felt the weeks she’d been in the desert
falling away from her and a tenderness he had never known in all his
years swim over him like a flash flood once in Boyd’s Canyon. It
was abrupt and riotous and sweet at the same time.

“You take my
breath away.” He fought to say “Ma’am” and finally “Shelby”
came out and she nestled deeper in his arms.

“I got none
left,” she said and one hand traced his face in the growing
darkness. “I could be with no one but you, Pretend Hardy. I swear
from my stirrups up.”

When the fire was
just a glimmer of coals, an occasional spark flared up like a tiny
loose star lost in the desert, they moved off to the base of the
towering wall. They went silently, and Dawg, who had not uttered one
sound the whole night, crept along with them without a single
command. At the base of the wall she was in his arms again, and when
she was about to speak, he placed his hand gently over her mouth and
whispered, “Shhh.” She nestled in his arms. He held her tightly
for the longest while, and then she felt him tighten more and then
loosen his whole body as if he was about to draw his weapon .

That’s when she
heard the sound, a clink and light trickle of pebbles or dirt, a heel
on a rock, cloth rubbing on cloth, a man’s breath as heavy as any
sound in the night. Qwick was descending the rock face. He was coming
down directly on top of her cliff-side hideout. She could almost
picture where he was. Then he stopped and both of them knew he was
studying the whole scene.

The fire was about
out. Their blanket rolls were still in place, alongside each other,
his hat sat over one end of his blanket roll, hers beside his. The
moon peeked from behind a cloud. In the far night a coyote crooned
his awareness of life. Her heart was thumping so loud she believed
Qwick might hear it. Hardy, she was sure, had stopped breathing,
stopped moving. She wondered if he had stopped enjoying her.

When Qwick’s shot
bored right through the center of his hat on the empty bedroll, Hardy
put a round high on Quick’s gun shoulder and heard the gun fall in
the darkness. He was on top of Qwick in a flash and had a pair of
irons on both wrists. The outlaw was moaning, and said, in a still
arrogant voice, “I’m bleeding to death. Do something.”

“Not much I can
do in the dark, Qwick. Best be quiet.”

As one real falling
star shot across the desert sky in a momentous arc, Shelby Spark
nudged Pretend Hardy and said, “We can still play-act, can’t we?”